Even if the cost of making calls in mobile telephone networks have decreased, from a subscriber point of view, there still exist large differences in pricing between different network operators. This is especially evident for international calls. A subscriber, located in a home country, wishing to make a call from his/her mobile telephone to another subscriber who is located in another country, different from the home country, must be prepared to accept that the charge for such a call in many cases is several times the amount of a call to a subscriber within the home country.
The fact that there now exists, in most countries, a multitude of different operators of mobile communication networks has led to a situation in which the operators compete with each other by offering subscriber different deals, including discount rates for international calls. For example, the use of selected operator prefix numbers makes it possible, for a subscriber wishing to setup an international call, by prefixing the country code, the area code and the subscriber number with the operator prefix number to have the call being setup by the selected operator.
An example of a prior art method of selecting a mobile communication network or a service in such a network is described in US patent application publication 2002/0039892. A network and service selector function receives a request for access to a network and may use pre-selected user preferences when deciding which network to use. Such user preferences include the cost of using the network.
Drawbacks with prior art methods include that a user wishing to take advantage of a specific operator when making an international call need to know specific operator prefix numbers when placing the international call.
Moreover, associations having a plurality of users, e.g. employees of a company, may wish to restrict the users when placing international calls to make the calls via a specific international operator, designated by the employer of the users.